Fear of nuclear power is the same as the fear of heights (acrophobia) or small spaces (claustrophobia), there is no reasoning behind it because it is not based on actual damage done to the person in fear, it is based on the potential damage to the person who is fearful. If anything were like the media presents it to be then we would have all died from every possible threat long long ago. That doesn't keep people from having zombie apocalypse nightmares, or ebola bioterrorism nightmares, but in this world we live in your chances of dieing from starvation or violence are vastly greater than your odds of falling out of a skyscraper window, being crushed to death, or getting fatal radiation poisoning.

I should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

That's right, you mentioned some hypothetical power outage in Germany causing Fukushima like disasters. This is pure BS because the nuclear power plants would remain intact. The blackout we had here in Ontario and North East USA in 2003 caused nuclear power plants to be shut down and then restarted over the course of 2 weeks. There were no meltdowns. I am not going to engage in moving goal posts debates. Come up with better scenarios for nuclear Holocausts in Germany.

Thats a misleading title, as the article is about the Obama administration providing money to support the construction of two new nuclear power plants in the USA.

Backing from Obama and the dems for nuclear power isn't bad for nuclear power---its really really GOOD for nuclear power.

The plants that have been under construction have been WAY over budget. They haven't been successful in convincing this country of a nuclear renaissance, especially with new safety standards being tacked on. San Onofre isn't alone. At least three other nuclear plants have been shut down (or are planned to be shut down) so far this year.

San Onofre Seen as Latest Setback for U.S. Nuclear Power

"We suspect other nuclear plant owners may start reaching the same decision.”

Tanada wrote:Fear of nuclear power is the same as the fear of heights (acrophobia) or small spaces (claustrophobia), there is no reasoning behind it because it is not based on actual damage done to the person in fear, it is based on the potential damage to the person who is fearful.

Nuclear armageddon is not high on my list of things to worry about---slow motion economic collapse and climate chaos are enough for me. But I wouldn't equate opposition to nuclear power to a psychological disorder. Perhaps overblown, but hardly a psychological disorder.

If anything were like the media presents it to be then we would have all died from every possible threat long long ago. That doesn't keep people from having zombie apocalypse nightmares, or ebola bioterrorism nightmares, but in this world we live in your chances of dieing from starvation or violence are vastly greater than your odds of falling out of a skyscraper window, being crushed to death, or getting fatal radiation poisoning.

Well if the probability of dieing from starvation or violence is higher than we'd like, why add yet another threat, one completely beyond the individual's control?

Seriously, I think Cephalotus has done a good job of laying out the worst-case scenario argument for nuclear, which is what the OP was asking. It ain't pretty, and it's not as improbable as you seem to think.

That said, as the threat posed by climate change and our continued burning of FFs has become more and more apparent (and more and more alarming), I'll admit to being less anti-nuclear than I used to be, despite continuing to be an unrepentant treehugger. But it's a moot question, at least in the US. Nuclear is an economic loser in the America, and that's all the matters. The moneymen are the deciders, and they've decided nuclear is too expensive to build. It simply can't compete with coal and gas. That isn't likely to change any time soon.

As for China, Russia, et al. building nuke plants, they'll build them regardless of environmental regulations or NIMBYism or economic rationality---that's the beauty of authoritarianism. Plus they'll burn as much coal, gas, and oil as they can. A win-win for all sides I suppose...."

dissident wrote:Only if you are all total morons. Will the backup generators, that only need to run for a few days, disappear or be comprised? The only reason we had the Fukushima disaster is because of idiotic deployment of a US building design to a tsunami prone coastal area in Japan. If they paid some high school student to revise the design the first thing that would have been suggested was to move the backup generators out of the basement and onto the rocky hill right behind the plant.

Well if the Japanese are too stupid to run nuclear plants, who do you suggest is qualified? Haiti? Perhaps Liberia? I'm sure the Pakistanis will do a fine job.

dissident wrote:That's right, you mentioned some hypothetical power outage in Germany causing Fukushima like disasters. This is pure BS because the nuclear power plants would remain intact. The blackout we had here in Ontario and North East USA in 2003 caused nuclear power plants to be shut down and then restarted over the course of 2 weeks. There were no meltdowns. I am not going to engage in moving goal posts debates. Come up with better scenarios for nuclear Holocausts in Germany.

I'm not a native speaker so maybe I miss the point:

What exactly do you understand under a "collapse scenario"? The US blackout from 2003 ???

The UCS has always been anti-nuclear and they have never budged from that opinion. They may have degrees in science but the approach they take towards anything fission related is emotion driven, not logic driven. By that I mean they believe fission is bad so they only look for evidence to support their point of view instead of looking at the issue objectively and doing a real cost benefit calculation of what things like fossil fuels are doing as the alternative energy supplier.

I should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

New York Times | WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court ruled Tuesday that the Energy Department must stop collecting fees of about $750 million a year that are paid by consumers and intended to fund a program for the disposal of nuclear waste. The reason, the court said, is that there is no such program.

Congress passed a law that established the fee in the early 1980s, to be paid by customers who use electricity from reactors. But soon after President Obama took office, he made good on a campaign promise and stopped work on the disposal site selected by Congress, Yucca Mountain, about 100 miles from Las Vegas.

The fund so far has spent about $7 billion, mostly on Yucca, and has about $30 billion on hand, including interest income.

The energy secretary is supposed to set the level of the fee based on the costs of the program, and the department had argued that for the purposes of calculation, it should continue using what the cost would have been at Yucca. But the Energy Department has dismantled the office that was pursuing the Yucca project.

In a decision written by Judge Laurence H. Silberman, the court ruled that “until the department comes to some conclusion as to how nuclear wastes are to be deposited permanently, it seems quite unfair to force petitioners to pay fees for a hypothetical option.” What they have already paid might cover that cost, Judge Silberman wrote, adding, “the government apparently has no idea.”

The fee had been set at a tenth of a cent per kilowatt-hour generated by reactors, which is about 1 percent of the average retail price of electricity.

The decision increases pressure on Congress to act, but on this issue, as on others, it is deadlocked. House Republicans want Mr. Obama to follow the laws passed in the 1980s and develop Yucca. Harry Reid, the Nevada Democrat who is the Senate majority leader, has blocked funding.

There is in fact no assurance that Yucca would turn out to be suitable. The Energy Department applied to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for a license to build and operate the repository, but then tried to withdraw the application, and the commission stopped work. This year, the appeals court ordered the commission to resume work on the license, and on Monday, the commission said it would do so until it had exhausted the money it had on hand for that purpose, about $11 million.

But $11 million is far short of what a full evaluation would require, commission officials said. Allison M. Macfarlane, the commission chairwoman, said Monday that she did not know whether the commission would ask for more money from Congress to complete the review.

Used nuclear fuel is in the meantime accumulating at reactor sites and forcing reactor operators to build steel casks to hold it. The operators all signed contracts with the Energy Department under which the department, in exchange for the fees, was supposed to start taking the fuel for disposal beginning in 1998. The department now hopes to have a repository open by 2048.

Dr James Hansen recommends breeder reactors that convert nuclear 'waste' into 1000 years of clean energy for America, and can charge all our light vehicles and generate "Blue Crude" for heavy vehicles.https://eclipsenow.wordpress.com/recharge/

With the release of the final two volumes of a five-part technical analysis, the commission closed another chapter on the controversial repository nearly five years after President Barack Obama abandoned the project, and more than a quarter century after the site was selected. While the staff recommended against approving construction, the solid technical review could embolden Republicans who now control both houses of Congress and would like to see Yucca Mountain revived.

“At this point it would be difficult to revive the project,” says Matthew Bunn, a nuclear expert at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. “All of the people who were working on this project have moved on, and they have new jobs.”

In January 2012, an independent commission appointed by the White House to analyze the country’s nuclear waste policy recommended starting from scratch and looking for communities and states that are willing to host a repository. The commission also recommended the establishment of an interim storage program, but lawmakers on Capitol Hill have yet to tackle the issue.

NRC staff released its technical analysis under orders from a federal court, which in 2013 ruled that the agency must continue with the licensing process as long as it has money to do so. Although the DOE has shown the project to be geologically sound, the staff said in its report to the full commission, construction would be impossible until the federal government secures the necessary land and water rights from the state of Nevada, which is vehemently opposed to the project.

II Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

Low level waste ,coming from the power industry , medical isotope , industrial use ...there is no danger from it , it can be stored in a garage next door with no ill effectit's only a regulatory classification

Medium level waste , it relate to industrial equipment which have been in contact with radionucleids such as piping , process control , exchangers and so on , they can have residual nucleids after scrubbing but do not require cooling as they do not radiate , storage in standard containers is sufficient but must be segregated fro the public

High level waste , mostly spend fuel is the issue , some can be recycled ( generating more low and medium waste )the standard procedure is to leave the rods in a pond under 20 Ft of pure de-oxygenated water for a couple of yearswater provide the cooling and the radiation protection if it was to remain there , topped up with rainwater ,there would be no problems unless people interfered with it

PS @ cephalotus "It's also enough to make around 85,000 Nagasaki type bombs. (Plutonium bombs are quite easy to make, even 3rd world countries like India or Pakistan have been able to do so many years ago...) With access to Plutonium Iran would already have its nukes...This has a radioactive half time of 24,000 years, so it will still by very harmful in 100,000 years."

That is factually incorrect , the plutonium by product is unsuitable for weapon grade stuff beside Plutonium being a nightmare to cast and machine , it has to be specially made by slow ,repeated irradiation in a special nuclear reactor Plutonium is also the easiest to shield against , Alpha particles are stopped by a sheet of cardboard

I should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, design a building, write, balance accounts, build a wall, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, pitch manure, program a computer, cook, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.

WASHINGTON — The White House’s fiscal 2018 budget plan for the U.S. Department of Energy includes $120 million to restart licensing for the proposed Yucca Mountain nuclear waste dump in Nevada, a project stalled for years by lawsuits and local opposition.

The move signals that President Donald Trump may consider the site as a solution to extending the lives of existing U.S. nuclear power plants that have been hobbled by a lack of places to get rid of their spent nuclear fuel.

"These investments would accelerate progress on fulfilling the federal government's obligations to address nuclear waste, enhance national security, and reduce future taxpayer burden," according to a summary of the budget proposal.

Yucca Mountain has been studied by the U.S. government since the 1970s as a potential repository for the nation's radioactive waste and billions of dollars have been spent on the project.

But it has never opened for business because of legal challenges and widespread opposition from local politicians, environmentalists and Native American groups.

Trump's energy secretary, Rick Perry, a former Texas governor, told lawmakers at his confirmation hearing that restarting the Yucca Mountain project could not be ruled out, but that he would collaborate with states.

"I am very aware that this is an issue this country has been flummoxed by for 30 years. We have spent billions of dollars on this issue," Perry told the hearing in January. "I’ll work closely with you and the members of this committee to find the answers to this issue."

The White House proposal for the Department of Energy budget calls for an overall cut of 5.6 percent, which would include the elimination of some research programs.

II Chronicles 7:14 if my people, who are called by my name, will humble themselves and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and I will forgive their sin and will heal their land.

When fast neutron breeder reactors are deployed on a large scale in Russia, China and India, America can sell them its "waste". So if they are going to store it at Yucca they should not encase it in glass and steel as if it is going to be there for tens of thousands of years.